Race under the microscope: Tackling biological misunderstandings of race in research

Tuesday 26 July 2011, 2:00pm - 3:20pm

LOCATION: KNICKERBOCKER ROOM

This session was linked with “A good market for bad science: How biological race is sold to the public.” How and why do long-discredited biological explanations of socially-defined race maintain a presence within scientific and medical research? How do misguided research practices and policies lay foundations for technologies, discourses and public understandings that foster biological assumptions about race? This session evaluated our most current concerns about the use of race in biological and other scientific research and discuss specific and actionable strategies for intervention. Panelists provided a range of examples from population genetics, evolutionary biology and medicine, US patent policy, and genome sequencing and banking. The session also considered certain positive, though often misguided, motivations behind including race in scientific research, such as reducing health disparities and including minority groups in research.